In Bodega, dedicated group of volunteers maintain historic church

BODEGA

In groups of twos and threes and fours, the parishioners of Bodega’s St. Teresa of Avila made their way down the steep gravel driveway from their white wooden church after Mass Sunday, and took a left onto Bodega Highway, headed to a pancake breakfast at the volunteer fire department.

The church sponsors two breakfasts as fundraisers each year, but this one - the spring pancake breakfast - is always put on by the church’s restoration committee, with proceeds going to the upkeep of the 158-year-old historic landmark made famous by the Ansel Adams photograph “Church and Road.”

Limited edition posters featuring the photograph are still sold by the committee - with permission of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust - to support maintenance of the building where Alfred Hitchcock is said to have attended services, and which draws hundreds each year to photograph its striking facade.

Sitting outside the Bodega Volunteer Fire Department’s McCaughey Hall, away from the din of indulgers of pancakes, fruit and sausages, restoration committee member Bob Tiller, 83, thanked fellow parishioners as they left.

“Thank you for coming!” Tiller said.

“Thank you for doing this,” the family said back.

Tiller and his wife moved to Bodega in the 1990s but have been involved with the parish since the 1970s, he said.

“My wife and I fell in love with the church shortly after we got here,” he said. “It doesn’t take you very long.”

That’s why the restoration committee’s work is so important to all the ranchers and harbor workers and vintners who call the surrounding west county communities home, he said - even those who aren’t members.

“They love the place not because it’s a Catholic church or a church, period,” he said.

“It’s because it’s a place where we can get together as a community, and, you know, talk about how things are going for us, how much we love the area. It brings you together as a community, I think, when you have some place you can do that kind of thing.”

In January 2017, a storm blew the crucifix off the top of the church, the wooden steeple it was attached to rotten from years of putting up with the elements. Funds from breakfasts, poster sales and donations helped pay for a new one.

And in September, a crew of about five men, including restoration committee chair Joe Conway, worked five hours to install it.

Conway, 69, was inside the steeple for the installation, personally tasked with making sure the cross was straight.

“It had to be done,” he said, laughing. “What good is St. Teresa without the cross at the top? … It went very smoothly I thought, considering that we’re jacks-of-all-trades, masters of none. But we did it!”

Scott and Joan Zellar, of Occidental, have been coming to the spring pancake breakfasts for 40 years.

When their son was “just a little guy,” someone used to play the accordion during the breakfasts, and he would go up and dance to the music, said Scott Zellar, 62.

Joan Zellar, 64, grew up spending summers in west county with her family, and has been attending services at St. Teresa of Avila since the late 1950s, she said.

“Many generations of families have been parishioners there and helped built it,” she said.

“These little fundraisers help keep that going. The church is important to residents no matter what denomination. It’s really special.”

You can reach Staff Writer Christi Warren at 707-521-5205 or christi.warren@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @SeaWarren.